Data centers may host applications and store large amounts of data for an organization or multiple organizations. Clusters of storage devices, e.g., Fiber Channel (FC) storage arrays, in one location are called SAN islands and communicate using the FC Protocol. Users accessing a SAN may reside on an Ethernet based LAN at another location that may be coupled to an FC server cluster for communication with the FC storage array. To mediate communication between the FC server cluster and the FC storage array, an FC switch network (also called “switched fabric”) is employed.
Recent advances have led to virtualization in SANs and LANs resulting in the creation of Virtual SANs (VSANs) and Virtual (VLANs). VSANs and VLANs remove the physical boundaries of networks and allow a more functional approach. In a virtualized environment, virtual devices can move from one place to another without requiring any physical connectivity changes. In addition to virtualization, web hosting, disaster recovery and redundancy considerations make it desirable to extend LANs and SANs beyond traditional single site operations for which LANs and SANs were originally designed.